Last month I talked about the importance of knowing your yard or landscape site really well and making choices to get the best use out of the space you have. In landscape design, we hear the term Right Plant, Right Place a lot. You can spend an awful lot of time, money and water on a design that will never look the way you envision if the plants you pick are not the right choice for your climate, or even that particular spot in your yard.
The following checklist should help you to focus in on things you can do while planning that will make your landscape easy to care for. And if you’d like to consult with a professional, contact me or someone in your neighborhood. The Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) has a great search function on their website for this. Good luck!
Right Plant, Right Place Action Checklist:
- Determine how much open lawn area is ideal for children, pets, and recreation. Where possible, use low-maintenance groundcovers, shrubs, mulch, or other porous surfaces that allow water to infiltrate. By letting rain sink into the ground, you’re cutting down on the amount of water your plants need from irrigation. And porous surfaces are substantially cooler than concrete or artificial turf.
- Be flexible in your plant choices. There is usually a way to have what you want. For instance, if you have shade but love roses, perhaps you can have some in pots on a sunny patio. A successful planting design will suit the environment your home and landscape offer.
- Design and maintain a yard that thrives predominantly on rainfall once plants are established. Use the stormwater approach to landscaping so that you can keep more rainfall on your property instead of sending it to the storm drains.
- Reduce the need for water, fertilizer, and pesticides by choosing plants suited to the site conditions in your yard.
- Group plants according to their water needs, or hydrozones.
- Reduce later work by choosing plants that will not require frequent pruning when they reach maturity.
- Decrease soil erosion by planting groundcovers where lawn will not grow well, such as under trees or on steep slopes.
- Save energy by using trees and shrubs to shade the eastern and western walls of your home. Use deciduous trees or shrubs on southern exposures to allow sun to passively heat your home in winter.
Many of the maintenance needs of a garden are determined by the design. A good design will flourish over many years and require cleanup and pruning only once or twice a year. After the first two years, you will rarely need to water your yard while still having flowers, butterflies and hummingbirds.
